Fake products: 80% of consumers believe they use genuine ones, say FICCI
NEW DELHI: Around 20 per cent of accidents on Indian roads are caused by counterfeit automobile parts, while 30 per cent of FMCG items sold are fake, but 80 per cent of consumers still believe that they are using genuine products, according to FICCI CASCADE.
Stating that illicit products are adversely affecting Indian consumers, the industry body which is working on addressing the issue of unlawful trade activities in India, said there’s an urgent need to increase not just awareness in consumer but also among lawmakers and enforcement agencies.
FICCI CASCADE(Committee Against Smuggling and Counterfeiting Activities Destroying the Economy) further said counterfeiting and illicit trade has also led to huge revenue loss to the exchequer.
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Smugglers hide 10,200 cigarette packs, chewing tobacco in truck carrying sand
Muscat: Oman Customs busted smugglers attempting to bring in 10,200 packets of illegal cigarettes and 600 kilograms of chewing tobacco into the country by hiding them underneath a load of sand on a truck.
Oman Customs said in its statement: “The Wadi Al Jizi border customs foiled a unique smuggling operation of 10,200 packets of forbidden cigarettes and 600 kilograms of chewing tobacco, where the suspect has professionally hidden them in a truck loaded with sand.”
Smugglers have been caught trying to bring contraband and illegal substances into the country in a variety of techniques, with customs officers arresting an expatriate at Muscat airport earlier this year, who was carrying 8.7 kg of marijuana and 1,285 narcotic tablets that were covered with carbon paper.
http://timesofoman.com/article/136307
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ICE seizes 181,000 counterfeit items worth nearly $43 million in Laredo, Texas
LAREDO, Texas — Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) on Tuesday completed counting the counterfeit items seized in Laredo in June which totaled more than 181,000 items. HSI estimates the street value of the seized items at more than $42.9 million, which is HSI’s largest counterfeit seizure in Laredo.
In mid-June 2018, HSI special agents conducted surveillance over a three-day period and observed boxes containing suspected counterfeit merchandise being moved. During the enforcement action, HSI discovered that all shipping labels on all the boxes depicted fictitious delivery addresses in Laredo. HSI confirmed the boxes contained counterfeit merchandise and detained the boxes.
HSI eventually seized 795 boxes containing 181,615 pieces of trademark-infringed merchandise, which included many counterfeited brands, such as the following names: Adidas, Apple, Calvin Klein, Casio, Chanel, Coach, Diesel, Fendi, Gucci, Hugo Boss, LG, Luis Vuitton, Mark Kors, Nike, Rolex, Samsung, Sony, Under Armor, Yves St. Laurent; and DC and Marvel Comics.
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Counterfeiting likely to cause loss of over 5 million jobs globally by 2022: FICCI
Kolkata: A recent FICCI report has revealed that the total employment loss globally due to counterfeiting activities is expected to rise to 4.2 to 5.4 million jobs in 2022. It was 2 to 2.6 million jobs in 2013 and in 2022, the approximate increase would be 110 percent.
Sadhan Pande, the state Consumer Affairs minister, said: “Counterfeiting is a big issue in India which is affecting our revenues, particularly the indirect taxes.” In the state of West Bengal, the minister cited examples of counterfeit products such as tea, cream etc which were finding its way to the retail market owing to their low prices. Further, he added that illicit trade in cigarettes is also a big menace in the state, as they are being smuggled from neighbouring countries and are readily available across the markets in Bengal.”
Mayank Jalan, chairman, FICCI – West Bengal State Council and CMD, Keventer Agro Ltd, said: “Counterfeiting and smuggling adversely impact industries, consumers, government and economies as a whole. It is imperative to understand the need for safeguarding the rights of legitimate industry in developing competitiveness in various sectors of the economy.”
Lear MoreCounterfeiting of products now big industry in India: Bengal minister
Counterfeiting of products have become a “big industry” in India that is impacting the consumers as well as the revenue earned by the governments, a senior West Bengal minister said here on Tuesday, urging the police and state agencies to be more vigilant to curb such practices.
“Counterfeiting has become a very big industry. Products like tea and cigarette of all the big brands are being counterfeited. I do not know whether the government of India is focussing on this matter because it is impacting the revenue, particularly in the segment of indirect taxes.
“Also the consumers are unknowingly using bad quality products while paying for big brands,” state Consumer Affairs Minister Sadhan Pande said at a Conference on Combating Counterfeiting and Smuggling, organised by Ficci CASCADE (Committee Against Smuggling and Counterfeiting Activities Destroying the Economy) here.
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NT$10 million in smuggled tobacco seized in Pingtung.
Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA) busted a tobacco smuggling operation in Pingtung County late Monday night and seized NT$10 million (US$333,667) worth of smuggled cigarettes, the CGA said Tuesday.
In a statement, the CGA said officers from its southern office seized 160,000 packs of untaxed cigarettes with a market value of NT$10 million from a Donggang-registered fishing boat called the “Chang Sheng” and arrested five crew members, including the captain.
The CGA, which worked on the case with the Kaohsiung Harbor Police Department, said the busting of the smuggling operation came after a month of effort following up on tip-offs and collecting evidence on the fishing boat’s moves.
Just after the fishing boat arrived in Donggang at around 11 p.m. Monday, CGA officers boarded the vessel and conducted a search that found the 160,000 packs of cigarettes stuffed into 331 big boxes hidden in the lower deck of the boat, the CGA said.
http://focustaiwan.tw/news/asoc/201805290013.aspx
Lear MoreR36.5-M smuggled goods confiscated
The Bureau of Customs (BoC) seized yesterday some R36.5-million smuggled goods such as agricultural products, ukay-ukay, and cigarettes.
The smuggled items were discovered inside seven container vans during spot inspection of alerted shipments at the Manila International Container Port, Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña said in a press briefing.
The containers from China which arrived on separate dates at the Manila International Container Port were declared to contain non-woven interlining and women interlining, industrial fur, fresh apple, and household ware.
However, Lapeña confirmed that the actual contents found by the Customs authorities are very different from what was declared. A total of 947 cartons of More cigarettes and 53 cartons of Marvels cigarettes, 950 boxes of Mighty cigarettes, boxes of apples mixed with onion, apples mixed with boxes of fresh carrots, and bales of ukay-ukay mixed with food without Food and Drug Administration (DFA) permit were uncovered.
http://tempo.com.ph/2018/05/25/r36-5-m-smuggled-goods-confiscated/
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Customs Agents Seize $16 Million of Chinese Counterfeits in Texas.
U.S. customs agents recently seized more than $16 million worth of counterfeit goods in Laredo, Texas, a shipment that originated from China and was possibly smuggled through Mexico, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The fake goods, totaling almost 79,000, included designer clothing, electronic goods, and athletic shoes mimicking Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Adidas, Nike, Apple, and Sony, an ICE press release on May 21 stated.
Special ICE agents conducted the seizure on May 17 after surveilling a public storage facility in Laredo, where people were transferring boxes from a leased storage unit into pickup trucks and vans with Mexican license plates.
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P5.3 B worth of fake goods – mostly cigarettes – seized in Q1
Most fake or counterfeit goods confiscated by the government in the first quarter of the year worth at least P5.3 billion were cigarettes and cigarette production equipment, the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) said.
In a statement on Wednesday, IPOPHL said the value of the seized goods in the first three months of the year has already reached more than half of the total value of fake goods confiscated for the entire year in 2017, which reached P8.2 billion.
The spike this quarter – a triple-digit growth from the same period last year – was primarily attributed to the P5 billion worth of cigarettes and cigarette production paraphernalia seized by the government.
According to IPOPHL, these were mostly the products seized by the Philippine National Police from a factory in Bulacan in February.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/993578/p5-3-b-worth-of-fake-goods-mostly-cigarettes-seized-in-q1
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Revenue officials seize 45,000 cigarettes at Dublin Airport
Revenue officers have seized 45,000 cigarettes at Dublin Airport.
The seizure was made on Monday, when a passenger who had arrived from Nigeria via Frankfurt was stopped and searched at the airport.
The Benson & Hedges branded cigarettes had a retail value of €27,000, and would have represented a potential loss to the Exchequer of €21,375 if they had got through undetected. The passenger who smuggled the cigarettes, a 35-year-old Nigerian man, was subsequently arrested.
He appeared before Judge Bryan Smyth in the Dublin Metropolitan District Court earlier today, when he was remanded in custody to Cloverhill until May 28, when he will be brought before the Court again.
In a statement, the Revenue said that the majority of people pay the right amount of tax and duty on imports, and said this seizure was made as part of ongoing operations against illegal cigarette smuggling.
https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/revenue-officials-seize-45000-cigarettes-14692868
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